BEAT OF HAWAII AND BEYOND

Today’s announcement from Alaska Airlines is great news for both Hawaii and California’s bay area.

Starting in March, the company will offer these new services:

• Three times a week between San Jose and Maui
• Four times a week between San Jose and Kona
• Daily service between Sacramento and Maui

This announcement falls right on the heals of  this week’s start of Alaska’s Oakland to Maui and Kona service.

What this means is that competition from the Bay area to Hawaii will be even stronger than it is already. That virtually guarantees good deals in this all-important to Hawaii market.

Inaugural pricing:

• $169 between San Jose-Maui, San Jose-Kona and Sacramento-Maui
• Purchase tickets by Nov. 24, 2009 (“may” be extended)

What we might see next:

I still expect to see further competition in the Southern California to Hawaii market. Recently Continental positioned into a prior Aloha Airlines slot at Orange County’s John Wayne when they announced upcoming service to Honolulu. That still leaves room for service from Orange County to other Hawaii airports.  San Diego is also ripe for expanded Hawaii service, possibly from Alaska.

Would you fly a commercial flight with one pilot and a closed cockpit door? We did this weekend with Go! Mokulele between Honolulu and Molokai.

While our 9 passenger Cessna had fantastic views, the pilot’s closed door was a concern.

I kept wondering how I would know if there was a problem with the pilot and who on-board could fly the plane if he was unable to?

The new Go! Mokulele partnership feels like two companies instead of one.

We began with a  flight between Kauai and Honolulu. The Go! agent at Lihue (who works for Pacific Air Cargo) was unable to check us through to Molokai. Once in Honolulu, although we’d already been TSA screened, we had to leave security, to both check in and be re-screened again.

We went directly to the Go! counter and their Honolulu agent (employed by Swissport) told us to check in at the Mokulele counter with the agent employed by Republic. Unlike us, our bag transferred without a problem.

On the return flight from Molokai, Mokulele did not provide TSA screening. We had to claim luggage in Honolulu, walk it to Go! plus  go through TSA in order to check-in for the flight to Kauai.

Not only were we confused but so were the agents at each stop.  Not a good sign.

Jeff believes that Go! Mokulele may discontinue the Grand Caravan service in the future.  It is an odd-ball service for Mesa, which otherwise flies only CRJ and EMB jets together with Dash-8’s turbo-props. Go! has an existing partnership with Island Air which also allows it to provide service to Molokai and other smaller Hawaii airports.  Given Go!’s proclivity for contracting everything but their mainline plane and crew, it is that much more likely.